After the heady success of Mariette in Ecstasy (1991), Hansen toys with mystery writing in a slick fiction that also continues his last novel's spiritual intrigue. Here, the author deliberately invokes Lazarus and the Prodigal Son in a story that otherwise relies on lots of Hollywood imagery. Atticus Cody, like the Atticus of Harper Lee, is a righteous man in his 60s, a good father who can express himself only indirectly. His younger son, Scott, over 40 and still wandering through life, is home for the holidays, and, as usual, father and son can't communicate. With his history of manic-depression and suicidal bouts, Scott is anathema to his stoic dad, a successful oilman. He also suffers from the guilt of having killed his mother in a car accident after college, and senses his father's blame. All this changes later, though, when Atticus is summoned to Mexico to retrieve Scott's dead body. Shortly after meeting his son's friend in the decadent, expat community on the Gulf Coast, Atticus senses that something's amiss, that Scott didn't commit suicide but was murdered. Atticus's careful detective work is the best way he knows of showing love for his son, and he pursues the mystery with a sense of belated forgiveness and reconciliation. The mystery is more or less resolved two thirds into the novel, when Scott's discovered hiding out among the homeless in a church basement. He then wraps up all the disparate details in a sad tale of accidental murders, blackmail, mistaken identity, and an adrenalin-fueled effort to elude justice. Hansen spares none of the supercilious expatriates and bleeds for the oppressed campesinos with their mystical attachments to the land, making for a fairly predictable subtext. There's a writerly neatness in Hansen's vocabulary of images and allusions, though some seem jammed into the narrative for the sake of it. One suspects—and suspects again, when Scott mentions having a ``movie moment''—that Hansen wrote this one with an eye to the screen, where Mariette is due soon. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-018217-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
